infoTECH Feature

November 02, 2011

Google's Next Generation Android 4.0 to Be Open Sourced

Last month, in a blog post, Google’s (News - Alert) senior vice president of mobile products Andy Rubin talked about the next generation Android 4.0 operating system, also known as Ice Cream Sandwich, which works on both phones and tablets. Samsung’s (News - Alert) upcoming Galaxy Nexus smartphone was used to demonstrate the capabilities of Android 4.0.

The two partners demonstrated the Android (News - Alert) 4.0 powered super slim Galaxy Nexus at an event in Hong Kong. It features a 4.65-inch contour display with true high definition (720p) resolution and a lightning-fast dual core 1.2 GHz processor combined with 4G LTE (News - Alert) or HSPA+ technology.

Now, to accelerate its push into both the smartphone and tablet markets, ZDNet reports that Google is planning to make Android 4.0 available to the open source community in the coming weeks. This report suggests that Google’s planned purchase of Motorola’s (News - Alert) Mobility unit, supplier of both Android smartphones and tablets, will further help in this drive.

A Google spokesman Randall Sarafa told ZDNet that Ice Cream Sandwich is designed to re-unify the Android code base for smartphones and tablets, and will likely please more in the open source community. “Yes, it will be open sourced in the coming weeks,” Sarafa told ZDNet reporter Paula Rooney. He added, “Correct. No, Honeycomb was not [open sourced].”

“Honeycomb, the previous Android 3.0 code base optimized for tablets, was subject to some criticism for its potential to fork Android, and for not being available to open source developers,” wrote Rooney.

“Ice Cream Sandwich is Android 4.0, and it is one release for tablets, smartphones and everything in between. That means that tablets going forward can run on Ice Cream Sandwich as can phones, so it is an update for both tablets and smartphones,” Sarafa told Rooney.

According to ZDNet, Google announced plans to purchase Motorola’s mobility business unit for $12.5 billion earlier this year.  Motorola is the largest and most successful hardware supplier of Droid phones and Android-based Xoom tablets, wrote Rooney.


Ashok Bindra is a veteran writer and editor with more than 25 years of editorial experience covering RF/wireless technologies, semiconductors and power electronics. To read more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.

Edited by Rich Steeves
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